Maybe More
by lolainslackss
Summary: When Jess decided he wanted her, she was his. Literati, one-shot.


**Maybe More**

Rory had been easy.

In some ways, he'd had her since the first scribbled word in a stolen book. There had been Dean, of course. He had been a surprise. But Dean was never a question of 'How?', and more a matter of 'When?', and Jess had never really deliberately tried to piss him off. Spending time with her just became so necessary, so inevitable, that pissing Dean off was just a side effect, an extra perk.

He never truly knew he had her until she came to New York. She walked towards him with her arm in a cast and a question in her eyes, and he imagined her sitting on that bus, fidgeting, biting her lip, eager with want, and he grinned. There was nowhere to go after that. He was anchored to her.

Summer was filled with the silence of her. The longing came in heatwaves - boredom, slick and warm. He'd thought she was finally his, imagined a dozen different summers, and now it was his turn to be pissed off. He channelled his anger into a petty revenge. His teeth rattled against Shane's when they kissed, summer was going to be over soon.

The wanting made him stupid. He stomped across the dance floor half-mad, no particular plan in mind, nothing to lose, everything to gain. This was not the same as bidding on her basket, or sneaking off to keep her company when she was home alone on a Friday night (he'd assumed), or convincing her to run away with him to get ice cream. It was getting tricky now, they were hurting other people, hurting themselves.

But in the end, it came down to this: a sad girl sitting on a bridge at night telling him she was his. She was his.

She had been all along.

...

 _Fourteen Years Later_

"What's it been, four years?" he asks.

"Maybe more," she replies.

He doesn't know why he's asking it like it's a question he doesn't know the answer to. He knows exactly how long it's been, and she's right. More than four years. He remembers it too well.

Accidental family reunions are the only ones he doesn't mind, although he pretends otherwise. Liz, and Doula, and Luke in one place. It's all he needs really, to feel close to something, briefly, before taking his leave. Then he hears Lorelai in the other room. She's talking to someone and still, _still_ , his heart skips a beat.

See, he never stopped wanting her, not really. He always thought she'd be his again. He thought he would fix it. He'd fix it all. Fix his life, fix himself. She'd be his again. He'd known it. He'd hoped it. But Rory wasn't so easy anymore. He wasn't able to sweep her off her feet anymore, and that scared him. She was hard, wry, charming. She matched him word for word. Then she did the rounds, made paper crowns with Doula, was absorbed by her cell phone for twenty minutes or so, took off. She took off - breezily kissed him on the cheek as she said goodbye as if he were no-one at all.

Maybe some small part of her would forever hate him for taking off all those years ago. But he'd fixed it. Hadn't he? He still wanted her, still wanted her to be his. He was half-mad again, crazy with longing, feeling stupid for pining. He should have moved on. This was unhealthy. He excused himself, went to the bathroom, dizzy with disappointment, hoping Luke wouldn't come see if he was okay.

" _Maybe more_ ," she replies, and she's still hard. She says it's good to see him like she really means it, but he's come to terms with the fact she'll never mean it the way he feels it. He sees her and it's like a summer heatwave beneath his skin. It's a car crash, a dial tone. He wants to bury his face in her hair and tell her he's sorry, he's sorry, he's sorry, over and over again.

He doesn't. He clinks his glass against hers and remembers there is a purpose to this. He didn't know she'd be in town. He didn't know she'd be so lost. So he does the only thing he knows how to do - he tries to fix things.

He tries to fix things because maybe if he fixes things enough, they can go back to the way they used to be.

Maybe if he fixes things enough, they can have it all. Maybe more.


End file.
